50:1  Thus says the Lord: Where is your mother’s bill of divorce with which I cast her out? Or to which of my creditors did I sell you? Surely, by sinning you sold yourselves; because of your crimes was your mother an outcast.

This is addressing the reprobate of the Lord’s people who alienated themselves from God, and broke the covenant relationship. Not that the Lord broke it and cast them off, like a woman divorced, but they, themselves, cut themselves off and made themselves an outcast. In ancient times, a woman couldn’t divorce a man, but a man could divorce a woman. Now, it’s the exact opposite; now both can divorce each other. In Isaiah there are two women: the woman, Zion, the virgin daughter of Zion, are those who renew their covenant relationship with the Lord. And then there is the harlot woman. The harlot woman is not just Babylon. She is the Lord’s people who are alienated from God, or who become alienated. At the same time that there are those coming into the covenant, there are others cutting themselves off from the covenant. And these here, are some of those who are being addressed. And that is because in the end of days, there are two entities of Israel: There is ethnic Israel, that comes back in, like the Jews and the Ten Tribes, and then there are those who are mingled Israel who have been the covenant people of the Lord, in the last days, who reject the covenant and become cut off. And that’s what these are. And they become part of the Babylon conglomerate, the Babylon synthesis, or arch-Babylon, as I call it—the ones who cut themselves off. There is a reversal of circumstances similar to that which happened when Christ was rejected of the Jews, and then the gospel was received by the Gentiles. The gospel is part of Israel’s spiritual inheritance. It is the law of the covenant for Israel. And it was rejected in the days of Christ’s ministry. It could go to the Gentiles because the lineages of Israel, by that time, had become scattered among the Gentiles. So it could go to the Gentiles, by right if inheritance. Otherwise, it would not have gone to the Gentiles. It could not have, because it had nothing to do with the Gentiles. In the end of days, those same Gentiles, or the mingled lineages of Israel among the Gentiles, reject that gospel and are cut off. And then the Jews and the Ten Tribes and others who were cut off, anciently, come back in. That agrees with Paul’s allegory of the olive tree, where he said the wild branches are grafted back in, temporally. And then when they magnify themselves against the roots, then they are cut off and the natural branches are grafted back in. He said that will be like life from the dead because it will be a reconstitution of the covenant with Israel, and that Israel will be born again; it will be like a nation reconstituted. Except, this time, it will be the nation called Zion, in the book of Isaiah.

50:2  Why was no one there when I came; why did no one answer when I called? Was my hand too short to redeem you; have I no power to deliver? By a mere rebuke I dry up the Sea; rivers I turn into desert—their fish become parched for lack of water and perish because of thirst.

The Lord came, himself, of course in the person of Jesus Christ, but in an end-time setting-- which is what the book of Isaiah is all about-- from a structural standpoint, the whole book can be read as an end time scenario. In the end time, the Lord’s Servant comes, and he calls for Israel to repent and to return and to renew the covenant relationship with [?] . And among the wicked no one responds. It is as if they don’t respond to the Lord himself when he comes and when he calls them. And the hand, there, is the Lord’s right hand, the Lord’s Servant, which is powerful enough to redeem them in a temporal sense from the calamities of the end times.
As it says, “By a mere rebuke I dry up the Sea; rivers I turn into desert (it’s very physical)—their fish become parched for lack of water and perish because of thirst.”

50:3  I clothe the heavens with the blackness of mourning; I put up sackcloth to cover them.

So, in a time of great calamities and judgment there is deliverance for the righteous, through the agency of the Servant, just as Moses delivered Israel. And it happens at the time when the sea is rebuked, as Moses rebuked the Red Sea. Just so, the Servant will rebuke the powers that be, in that day, which are the powers of the king of Assyria. And the king of Assyria is likened to a sea in commotion, and a river in flood, or a power of chaos, in the book of Isaiah. The Servant rebukes and dries up the sea so the people can come through on the exodus, on dry land as they did anciently. Rivers are turned into desert. The Lord has power over the elements. As Moses had power, so the Servant has power, in the name of the Lord, to do these things. Of course, fish becoming parched for lack of water and perishing because of thirst is also symbolic of people under a curse, who perish in that day. It’s part of the greater destruction that happens. The blackness of mourning with which he clothes the heavens, with the sackcloth with which he covers them, alludes to the skies being darkened: the sun being darkened and the moon being turned to blood, and the stars not giving their light, in that day. And darkness is a covenant curse. Darkness will be among the wicked. Chapter sixty, verse one says: “Arise, shine, your light has dawned. The glory of the Lord has risen upon you. Although darkness covers the earth, and a thick mist the peoples--” or polluting mist that is a result of all of the destruction of those days-- earthquakes, maybe nuclear war-- “upon you the Lord will shine. Over you his glory will be visible.” So there’ll be light for one group and darkness for the other. And, of course, here the context is the wicked, those who have alienated themselves-- as a woman and her rebellious children alienate themselves from their husband and father-- so these experience the darkness and the destruction. And they didn’t answer when the Lord called; they didn’t respond to the Lord’s Servant, so they were not delivered.

50:4  My Lord the Lord has endowed me with a learned tongue, that I may know how to preach to those grown weary a word to wake them up.

Weariness is a chaos motif. We saw the contrast between the weary and the unwearying, in chapter forty, where young men faint and grow weary. And those who hope in the Lord are renewed in strength and don’t grow weary. And the young men there that are spoken of are as those of Jacob or Israel, of that level; they grow weary. And those are the ones to whom the Servant is sent—the Israel/Jacob level. They have grown weary, and the Servant, now, is to wake them up from their stupor, from their sleep and from their weariness, and enliven them, and regenerate them. And he does it through preaching. And he’s learned.

50:4–5  Morning by morning he wakens my ear to hear, as at study; my Lord the Lord has opened my ear, and I rebel not, nor back away:

Why does he say that? Is he proud of himself? No; he’s holding himself up as a model for people to follow. He’s an exemplar. They, too, can wake up and listen. He’s taught by the Lord himself, directly-- through reading the scriptures, certainly—but also through the inspiration that comes through reading the scriptures, or when at prayer, or when just pausing to listen. He says, “I rebel not, nor back away.” This implies that there are those who do rebel and back away.

50:6  I offered my back to smiters, my cheeks to those who plucked out the beard; I hid not my face from insult and spitting.

So, in the course of serving God, one meets with opposition, as he meets with opposition, and anyone who serves God will meet with opposition, as we will see through the rest of the book, especially those who emerge out of Zion and become the servants of the Lord, as he is the Servant of God. They will meet with all kinds of opposition from all kinds of sources.
Also, insult and spitting and all kinds of humiliation happen to the righteous people of God, because they’re always accused of various things, as we see in the scriptures. In chapter sixty-one, verse seven he says: “ Because their shame is two-fold, and shouted insults were their lot. Therefore, in their land shall their inheritance be two-fold, and everlasting joy be theirs. After this period of humiliation and insult, embarrassment, and so on, there is a reversal of their circumstances when they inherit the great blessings that the Lord holds out for those who serve him. But he does require this of them, this [? word unclear] of humiliation as part of their test of faithfulness.

50:7  Because my Lord the Lord helps me, I shall not be disgraced; I have set my face like flint, knowing I shall not be confounded.

That requires considerable faith and stamina. And here the Servant is really emulating the Lord, the Valiant One of Israel, in himself being valiant in his testimony of God. He trusts in that help, even when the going gets rough. The Lord helps him. And after the Lord helps him and empowers him, then the Servant turns around and empowers people of Zion, as we will see in chapter sixty-one. After his reversal of circumstances takes place, then he turns around and helps those who are of the Israel/Jacob level who are repenting, and turns things around for them and empowers them.

50:8  He who vindicates me is near me. Who has a dispute with me? Let us face one another! Who will bring charges against me? Let him confront me with them!

 “He who vindicates me is near me--” which is the Lord. Also, the word, vindicate, is the same word in Hebrew as the word “to make righteous.” So he who makes me righteous, who justifies me, who vindicates, who legitimizes me, is near—to help him, as in the name Emanuel-- “God is with us.” God is with those who rely upon him and serve him. “He who vindicates me is near. Who as a dispute with me? Let us face one another! Who will bring charges against me? Let him confront me with them!” This implies that those who have problems with the Servant of God, those who are in authority, who put him down, implies that they have some kind of dispute with him but they don’t confront him with it. They talk about it behind his back. And so he has to say, “Let us face one another, for goodness sake! Come on. Be upfront, and don’t do this behind my back.” He knows they don’t have a viable argument against him, because he’s sent of God, and God legitimizes him, as we’ve seen over and over, where God the Creator of heaven and earth is the one who calls and empowers his Servant.

50:9  See, my Lord the Lord sustains me. Who then will incriminate me? Surely all such shall wear out like a garment; the moth shall consume them.

To be consumed by moths, wild animals, or by insects—those are all plagues. Remember, that whatever happens to the Servant also happens to the righteous?
In chapter fifty-one, verse eight, it says: “The moth shall consume them like a garment.” This is talking about those who ridicule the elect, or the servants of God. So here we have people rejecting the Servant, so they’re consumed by moths. And in the next chapter we have those who ridicule the people of God, and those ridiculers, are consumed by moths. It’s one example of what happens to the Servant happens to them. It’s one of the ways that Isaiah shows that he and they are part of the same entity, part of the same group. As king David was persecuted by the establishment—Saul was the establishment—and as Christ was persecuted by the establishment which was described as the Pharisees, so the Servant will persecuted by the establishment of that day, who are those who are in authority, both political authority and religious authority. In Isaiah, those two are always on a par.

50:10  Who among you fears the Lord and heeds the voice of his servant, who, though he walk in the dark and have no light, trusts in the name of the Lord and relies on his God?

He implies, because these two ideas are in parallel, that those who fear the Lord are the ones who heed the voice of the Servant. Those who don’t fear the Lord don’t heed his voice. The Servant is the light who is sent to light up the darkness of these people. So those are all word links. They’re also metaphors. The voice is the Servant himself, in that sense, and the light is the Servant himself. He personifies the light. Walking in the darkness, since the king of Assyria, and Babylon personifies darkness, it means that you’re influenced by him, in a metaphorical sense, on that level. But, if you trust in the Lord, and rely upon God, it has its own power—then the light begins to dawn for you and things begin to make sense out of the chaos, out of the confusion. And then there is hope and there’s the possibility of deliverance for you, from the powers of darkness, from the king of Assyria, and from the destruction of Babylon, from the Sodom and Gomorrah calamity.

50:11  But you are lighters of fires, all of you, who illuminate with mere sparks. Walk then by the light of your fires and by the sparks you have kindled. This shall you have from my hand: you shall lie down in agony.

Since he’s talking mainly, here, to a reprobate group—the ones who were cut of—or the ones who have alienated themselves, the ones who have a bone to pick him—this is the final summary. “ But you are lighters of fires, all of you, who illuminate with mere sparks. Walk then, by the light of your fires and by the sparks you have kindled. This shall you have from my hand: you shall lie down in agony.” In other words, they’re just trouble-makers who are lighting fires all over the place, that people need to keep putting out. The light of truth that they have is like a mere spark, in comparison to the light that the Lord has sent in the personhood of his Servant, or to the greater light that the Lord himself is. The Servant, although he’s a light, which is a power of creation, is only a forerunner to the Lord himself who is the greater light. He’s like the sun, peeking up over the horizon, and the Servant leads into God’s presence. But they won’t even have anything to do with the Servant, so they’re going to end up in agony. “This shall you have from my hand,” that is from his left hand, the king of Assyria. They will experience all of the covenant curses that come upon the wicked, through the instrumentality of the Lord’s left hand, the king of Assyria.